From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Native American Rights RE: Where are the European hypocrites? Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2003 01:00:06 -0400
At 07:49 AM 6/13/2003 -0400 Jon Gabriel wrote: >> Yeah, but there have been Jews in that area since >> before recorded history and they made up a very large >> proportion of the population before the Israeli War of >> Independence. > >You know, I do sympathize with this point of view, but by those >standards, the United States belongs to Native Americans, doesn't it? > >(....or do you feel perhaps that because they lost the war(s), they lost >their rights for the land? I'm curious about your opinion.)
Actually, I would argue that the Native Americans have lost "their rights to the United States" because of a combination of the folllowing: 1) The statute of limitations has expired.
Really? What is the 'statute of limitations' on taking land from a people who had lived on it for many generations? Five years? Ten? A couple of generations? When, in your opinion, will the 'statute' expire for the Palestinians? I do think that the argument as it was posed to me (they were there first, so the land is justifiably theirs) would mean that the US belongs to Native Americans. How long had the Jewish majority been out of Israel before the land was given to them?
The point I was making is that prior ownership is no justification for repossession. I don't quite see how this argument disagrees with that.
There's simply no way to turn back the clock to the injustice.
Yes, this I do agree with. And I'm not saying we should.
Moreover, almost all people alive in the US today were simply born here - and did not choose to be born here, and indeed, have no record of having oppressed Native Americans.
That's quite inaccurate. Much of the remaining Federal support for Native Americans during _this century_ ceased during the Eisenhower administration. I know plenty of people who were of voting age then. You must remember that the situation as it stands today had to be fought for politically and took decades for them to achieve and it's far from ideal.
2) The Native Americans did not really achieve sufficient organization, with a few local exceptions, to claim "nationhood" in the modern sense, and thus designate a representative to receive reparations.
On some levels, yes. On some levels no. They _were_ organized into nations and did send representatives to Congress. They had councils, judges, leaders, etc. There is bigger picture here: from the 1800's through the 1970's, Congress' attittude toward Native American nations vacillated between either viewing them as soveriegn entities which needed to be either kept separate from mainstream American society or assimilated into it OR as viscious barbarians that needed to be herded into reservation areas and wiped out.
You make it sound as if they had gone to Congress and lobbied they would have gotten reparations. That would have represented a fundamental change in the way we as a country viewed the Native American nations, which I highly doubt would have happened.
For example, the largest Native American group currently existant in the US today is the Navaho, but it doesn't really make much sense to give the Navajo North Carolina - or even Texas.
No, it doesn't. But would you have said that 150 years ago?
3) The ration of currently living Native Americans to available land is disproportionate. Thus, in sort of an extension of #1, it would make no sense and resemble no sort of justice to give the Native Americans all of the United States.
Agreed.
Jon
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